Fog streamed past. A living, moving thing. But no longer was the Eridysi aimed for it. The machine was swerving sideways now, and the Solfatarra’s end was so near. If they could just reach the forest beyond before they crashed. Please, she prayed. Noden, Hagfishes, the Twelve—please, let us reach the other side.

Then the machine was past. The last tendrils of fog whispered out of sight, and Safi spotted individual branches on individual trees. For some inexplicable reason, her brain identified every one rushing her way. There was a silver fir. A spruce over there. And straight ahead, where the Eridysi was going to land any moment, was a barren hornbeam.

Perhaps jumping overboard would be the safer option. Better to hit branches than to get tangled in a flying machine—

“Do not let go!” Leopold roared over the winds.

So Safi did not let go, and a fraction of a heartbeat later, the Eridysi swung in a new direction. Then back again. Swing, swoop, spin, swing. A sinking ship with too much speed. Bile rose in Safi’s throat. Her vision crossed.

They hit the tree.

Shock rammed through her. Wood crunched and hornbeam snapped, so loud that Safi lost all sense of sight or sound. Pain blasted through her. Blood welled on her tongue—and elsewhere too, deep scrapes on her left forearm, her right calf, the whole back side of her head …

As fast as they had hit, the crashing stopped. The Eridysi was no longer falling and the wood no longer cracking in two.

“Safiya.” Caden’s voice fuzzed into her awareness. He was dragging her. Wood scraped under her boots. Splinters snagged on her clothes. She thought she heard something creaking, but her ears weren’t working as they ought to be.

“Climb,” she heard, and with a confused blink, she realized a rope ladder now hung beneath her. It extended toward a hard earth, half hidden by shadows that would not stay still. Thick branches scraped and spun.

The creaking groaned louder.

“Climb,” Caden repeated, and suddenly he was on the ladder and trying to pull Safi onto it.

Gods below, why was the earth moving so much? And what was that creaking?

Somehow, she got her feet beneath her and her arms onto the rope. Somehow, she descended. Every fiber scraped fresh pain into her left palm. Her right leg trembled and burned. Bare branches scratched at her cheeks, streaked in her vision. Yet Safi moved, slowly, slowly, toward the ground.

Until suddenly the creaking turned to crashing. Until suddenly Caden bellowed, “Jump!,” and Safi realized the Eridysi was coming down on top of her.

She jumped. A clumsy, painful move from a ladder that offered no traction, no force. Air whizzed past. She was still so high …